AltME groups: search

I generally see the approach to educate a user in place until he 
feels educated working well.

same thing for copying to clipboard too... a flashing icon or some 
kind of passive notification, rather than a popup

I have two altme clients open on two computers (XP & RH)  on my desk 
right now and the last  message in the "tech news"  on XP is Prkr 
from May 26, the laso on the red hat is Reichart from a few minutes 
ago. both computers are on the same university subnet with fast connections. 
I have tried the dot trick, and stopping and restarting the altme 
on xp to try and force it to pick up the more recent messages
without sucuess.

Try logging on as guest/guest, and then back as yourself....It can 
sometimes force a proper resync

yes, not at all expected on a fast connection

How do you export AltME checklist info and then IMPORT that data 
back into another world?  Is there a file format for what AltME expects 
the data to look like?

I just tried guest with a password of guest to correct the syncing 
problem.

It says guest/guest is no longer valid.


Is that just me, or what?  If not, how are new people to request 
an account? And how do I work around the sync bug?

guess guest was a security hole

It always has been a big security hole -- a guest can delete groups 
and do all sorts of damage.


But right now, there is no way for someone new to join....unless 
they email an existing member and ask for details.

Security-wise: removing teh guest account is a great idea

Marketing-wise: not so sure....adds another barrier to joining the 
REBOl community.


How do people find out how to request to be pre-approved?  (One possible 
way is for rebol.net mirror t have a form that sends an email [if 
I can use the E word] to the adminstrator)

Shared application userids  *may* be a possibility once REBOL applications 
can talk with LNS.
Not so easy to do right now.

Gregg -- resync bug.....It appears to require those afflicted to 
logon as another user (eg guest in the old days) to kick start the 
resync of their real userid.....So two ideas...either:
[1] some of us need two ids

[2] create a special userid ("resync") and some of us will need to 
know the password.

someone sent me an Urgent Alert in this world, but I cannot read 
these. so if you need to reach me, just send me a private message. 
 Thanks. (my Urgent Alerts just go off the screen...)

i think alerts also go to your private message list, with a red bg

~Tests~

The "When Sent" part gets a red background.

Hey Riechart, we need a way to feed messages automatically into AltME 
 - to allow an email feed to reach it.

I'm sure this is a stupid question, but how do you enter a return 
(newline) into an AltMe entry directly, without precomposing your 
entry in a text editor or some such?

There you go, it was a stupid question afterall :)

Sorry, being sarcastic.  There's a little gulf between the developers 
of Altme and the users regarding some usability issues.

I noticed that there is a status line in the upper left that works 
for these, but I didn't notice it until I was looking at the icons 
in the upper left. When looking at the lower icons, that status line 
was out of me field of vision, so it might as well have not existed.

I have found the problem, why I can't login to AltME / Rebol3 world, 
while my firewall is active: The filewall recognizes the response 
as a backdoor for a trojan "bladerunner". Take a look at: http://www.digitaltrust.it/arachnids/IDS110/signatures.html

Take a look at Salamander, much cooler, smoother than TC. Salamander 
is one of the best tools I know.

OK, I will take a look. I looked into it briefly some three or so 
years ago, but it did not feature FTP, so I left it ...

>>me<< also a Salamander user

doesn't work for me thru a proxy server

http://www.rebol.net/builds/024/plus a big ALPHA qyality warning 
on the files page

so, guys, not having OX-X here ... could you give it a test drive 
and post onto OS-X group here?

ok, I've already found a bug :-) User setup doesn't scroll

Reichart 24-mar:

<<So our next update is coming along, aside from any features we 
are planning to include in the next build of AltME, we are looking 
for a new top 10 list of features or bugs for an interim release.
>>
Any more news on this, please?

Thanks.
But that's a little confusing.

The March announcement was not tied to View13 (it explicitly exluded 
the recycle bug for which a new version of View was needed).

It was an announcement, if I read it right, of an interim release 
on the existing SDK.

Yup, we need SDK.  for OSX

As to the next update, we are holding it this time to get a bunch 
of stuff done.  It is more efficient.

I think we may have different definitions of efficient.

To me, using a bit of software as buggy as Altme is not efficient 
- which is why I've never felt able to recommend it as groupware 
(see earlier dicussion).

I've been joining in with the REBOLn worlds because it is useful, 
though painful at times.

The problem, of course, isn't the bugs. It's the rate at which they 
get fixed.

Is anyone running Altme on a Mac under the PC emulator?

bug: on linux I am able to accidently paste into a posted message 
and obbliterate my copy of the message, restarting does noot help 
becausr it is an old message  and is not resynced even though it 
is different than it is elsewhere

to Reichart: have a look at the RAMBO group and see my findings about 
the GC crash, I think, that the workaround there can be applied to 
AltME too

The other day, I cut off my dialup connection about 10 seconds after 
starting AltME. The next day I connected, looked in Advocacy group 
and there were no new messages. I posted a message, and then it synced 
about 10 messages that had occurred during the intervening time. 
Just a bit more feedback on this problem.. in case it helps. I usually 
don't notice any such sync problem.

It's a common problem -- Just yesterday I got a week's worth of messages 
from the Sound group.

I think it resynced because I happened to be connected when someone 
sent a message to that group.  If I hadn't been, it'd still look 
like Sound was silent.

It used to be fixable by logging on as guest.
But that account no longer exists on this world.
A dot in the dot group may help.

I've tried various things -- like creating a new group & immeditaley 
deleting it. But I've not found anuthing that forces a resync.

The bottom line is Altme is flakey at delivering messages to some 
users.

The only solution I believe would curently work is to put a dot in 
every group every day.

That would reduce usabilty for those who don't have the problem, 
but increase it for those who do.

We think alike -- I asked for that back on 11-jul in this group. 
No response.

Maybe it breaks the TOS...I can certainly see issues from an administrator's 
viewpoint.

A single resync id with a password available on request for those 
who need it.....That would work, I think.

Reichart, just wondering with the world of IM clients getting more 
and more cluttered with Google's Chat application.  And with enhancements 
coming to AltME, QTask etc.  Are you able to give us any feedback 
to some of the plans for AltME or other apps with respect to your 
IM future?  Specifically I was wondering if other IM communication 
standards are going to be integrated so we are not an island of private 
chat?  Of course, having the option to not be a private world in 
some situations is a great option.


I see that most IM services today are going to a smart-client (x-internet) 
type application requiring software install.  Maybe Prolific's plan 
(I believe I recall anyway) to provide both a smart-client/web-client 
will be a plus.


With Google generating IM chatter in the computer world, just hope 
you don't miss the boat and can make an impact in the IM world when 
you release your updated product(s).

Performance issue with copying links: Set number of messages per 
group to a big number, say 5-10000, go to the View group and copy 
a link. It reacts very slowly before the OK dialog comes up. Click 
OK and it takes a few seconds to disappear.


Now copy some ordinary text by rightclicking on a chat entry, no 
performance problems.

Anton: <Maybe once you screw your sync, it stays screwed ?>

That seems most likely -- unless you happen to be online at the moment 
someone else posts a message to the out-of-sync group. That seems 
to resync it.


One way of telling if some of your groups are out of sync is to compare 
with the mirror at http://www.rebol.net/altweb/rebol3/

(only works for [web-public] groups, and only if the archive is not 
suffering from syncing problems).


I can see right now, for example, that I haven't been sent the last 
9 messages in [Tech News]

I start getting "invalid datatype during recycle" messages with Altme. 
Twice during the last two weeks. Is this a known problem???

Invalid datatype is a bug that seems to affect programs with async 
tcp

I think there is an AltME module called AltEx that does that.... 
but currently only used for things like email gateway.  I think 2.0 
will add a lot more of those features.

Thought I'd start a group (it's web-public) in the hope that there 
will be a DevCon2008 -- or more than one.
Does anyone have ahy plans, ideas, hopes?

I was also wondering if we couldn't do something virtual. That would 
be a project worth working on as the tools created woould be quite 
useful.

Even if I can use half of my year's income for a trip to Maui, I'll 
probably never get US Visa so it's pretty pointless for me.

Second Life or Croquet for a virtual DevCon?

Second Life is a cool idea.

Im not sure if SL has video broadcasting without going to a web site

but Croquet does.  This makes sense only until something similiar 
can be done in a rebol environment

Yes! a virutal DevCon would really be great!

You mean one of you geniuses can't write a virtual meeting app? : 
) Seriously, that would be a great project.

I'd say we need a presentation tool that relays layout data to a 
number of people along with streaming audio. That's my biggest issue 
with the experiences we've had with devcon videos.

Yes, just sat through a Microsoft Live Meeting presentation.  It 
was a very nice user experience.

Things I liked, speakers could queue up if they had something to 
contribute, when they were given the floor their bio page would display. 
 There was also a seating plan that showed the status of all people 
logged in by colour coding.  Questions were queued by a moderator 
and people could be given the option to 'raise their hand'.

the thing i don't understand is... what is the point of a virtual 
meeting? we already meet virtually here every day.

Gabriele;  altme has no facial expressions.  Few get how jokey or 
how serious a posting may be.  The eyes and intonations make for 
at least half of the meaning.  It's my personal opinion that people 
can't drive well with cell phones due to the 3.4 kHz audio range; 
too many brain cycles are being used to fill in the missing intonations. 
  It takes a leap of faith in many posts when technical information 
is being discussed.  If people could see the look of fear and confusion 
that I usually express while typing something, I'd feel better that 
I wasn't leading people down the garden path when offering opinions 
and advice; my brain would know that they would know I was talkin' 
out my ass.  :)  So in short; in person is best by far, video is 
a distant second, audio even further down the chain and text way 
down at the bottom.  So given REBOL's awesome international user 
base, if I can't make DevCon, gimme viddies.

Gab, I agree. But for those that can't attend it might be a good 
option.

yes, but then i say, we meet, and allow others to see video stream 
(worked well in France), and call in via skype (just need to make 
sure we have a pc with skype set up ;). 100% virtual is not even 
1% of the fun. ;)

and... i can provide a TeamSpeak server if you want voice. Video 
is unfortunately not that easy.

If you skim the transcript of the Altme group during DevCon2007, 
you can see the frustrations cuuased by the narrow channel between 
the meeting room and the rest of the world.

I think partially because the live feed was not a top priority for 
the organisers

One idea: If 50 people paid USD15 to be Internet Participants at 
 DevCon2008 that could fund a much better channel for them


http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/aga-display-posts.r?post=r3wp500x303

I'd go for something low-bandwidth, perhaps relayed from the devcon 
site to rebol.net where the bandwidth is higher for broadcasting. 
I would much rather have reliable text messaging than fuzzy or unclear 
video or audio that drops out once in a while. Hey, that sounds like 
AltME. :-)

Brian, we are different I guess. I also hate talking on a phone, 
since spoken word for me can be hard to understand, but a simple 
line of text can be read again and again until you get it at the 
speed that you can read, not the speed that's dictated at the other 
end. I see a big difference there and my brain works just fine, processing 
text. Perhaps it only comes after 10 years of IRC'ing with lots of 
different people.

I don't really care about video unless it's a tutorial where the 
content is shown in at least DVD quality with a clear voice using 
a studio microphone and the audio is properly synchronized with the 
video. Simple plain text is for me far preferable for anything less 
than that.

You in fact remind be of Radar O'Reilly in MASH who once wrote a 
letter to his mother. He wrote "I write to you very slowly, because 
I know you are not a fast reader." ;-)

Yes, would be nice to get the conference on this continent for a 
change.

and a few more on the mailing list ...

ok. What should be the criterias to be a selected host ?

I'm able to organize really good devcon in Czech Republic. There 
will be two parts: the devcon itself and also cool fun part for a 
group of people who want to stay for couple of days longer and together 
enjoy local sights,  wine cellars(Carl? ;)) etc.

If there is some interest it could be in 2008 or later in 2009, it 
doesn't matter.

Yeah, if you put that way, that would be nice. Do we have an app 
that shows where were all from? I wonder if Terry could whip up us 
something? I recall at one time there was a link to a google maps 
page that posted little balloons.

Oooh. Of course the line above has nothing  to with Devcon but if 
you want a nice stove...

There was a world map at one point, maybe done by Chriss Ross-Gill 
on an old IOS world.

errru has/had one called planet.r I have a copy and put it here  
 http://home.comcast.net/~amigarebol/planet.r

Whatever the live streaming can achieve on the day, I think it would 
be good if a high quality video was stored for later offline access.

Also, there must be a mic up close to the speaker---perhaps a lapel 
mic. Otherwise the audio is awful. The equipment needs to be set 
up a day or two before the event, and some testing done to make sure 
everything is working properly.  It pays to have someone with experience 
do this.

Chris: the crash looks like a some strangebug in the DRAW parser: 
If you swap line:
image images/pin prefs/location
to:
image prefs/location images/pin

it works ok

I may be able to help in the video streaming area. Our company has 
encoders that will stream at a lower rate and archive locally at 
a higher rate.

I come from the land down under!!  Actually I made a mistake... dragged 
my dot off the screen, thus lost it altogether.  :-(

I'm actually in Ottawa, Canada, the down-under was a bit of joke 
about being from where I "don't get much sun"

DevCon 2008 in Prague was cancelled. RT decided not to participate 
this year at DevCon, as they prefer R3 being finished first. Prague 
as a place still stays as a main candidate for next DevCon though. 
I expect next DevCon to happen sometimes Spring 2009.

Maybe read-only feature for certain groups would be sufficient as 
a starter ....

I think would could do it with out Carl, but it would be a lot of 
fun to have hi talk about R3...and worth waiting for...

I do like the idea of a Virtual devcon though...

We need a simple system to pass the video feed around, we think we 
found a service that works well...we need to talk to Mark (at Qtask) 
about what he finally liked best.

I would like to see a presentation system with concurrent audio feed 
from the presenter.

Would anyone be interested in setting aside a day for a virtual Rebcon? 
I am quite curious about 3.0 and projects you all are working on 
plus if some of the gurus could do a workshop(s) on topics (OK, my 
personal fav's)  such as:
Cheyenne
Com/DLL 
Flash Dialect

Anyway, it's a thought and we have only a few weeks left in 2008

I suspect in exchange of a REAL devcon, most of us would be apt for 
a virtual one.  We need a GOOD way to allow one person to control 
a camera, and voice, and for others to be able to ask questions. 
 THen pass the cam on.

I will give a talk on how we are using REBOL.

Yes, it HAS to be live.  This is the power of a conference.  THe 
real time interaction.  To KNOW people are there...now...this is 
not to stop some talks from being recorded ahead of time.  But you 
will lose a lot this way.

You don't see it working that a person could present something that 
was recorded and then at the end we could jump onto Altme? I know, 
kinda cheesey.

Hmmm, it would be interesting to have a DevCon at this time, since 
many people are at home.

May I suggest, that we do this another way, we create a list and 
let everyone post when is best, and when is worst, then we cull this 
to set a date.  this is SO easy to do in Qtask (we just create a 
form for this).  In AltME we could create a do list, and let each 
person just add their preference and follow a format.

I added a single Priority 100 task to serve as  template.

Hey, maybe we should have a beliefcon instead, then everyone would 
come :-)

it would be split in two spaces with a central hall between them....

Call for topics and presenters placed in the checklist.
Sent out an email on the mailist to inform and gather input:

Dear Fellow Rebolers (of the mailist faction),


There has been some interest in a virtual gathering of Rebol developers 
and users. These discussions have been taking place in the Rebol3 
Altme World. I know there are many here that do not regularly go 
there but nonetheless would be interested in participating. The date 
and time that has been looked at is December 27th from 12:00 PM. 
How does that sound to you?


There has been no decision on the technology to be used but you're 
input would be much appreciated. We are also in need of presenters 
and/or desired topics.

To summarize, we are looking for:

An agreement on the time and date
Topics desired
Presentors
Ideas for technology to be used
Other

I'm all for a  virtual gathering.  This could be much larger than 
in times past going that route.

Me thinks we'll have to rely on a couple of different technologies 
including Altme.

Hi James,


I've got 20 rooms set up already that I use to do live online music 
lessons on a daily basis.  I think the existing format of those rooms 
could work very well as they stand.  I'll create a special room just 
for Rebol Devcon.  I'd like to show you what I've got, to see if 
it'd work for your needs.  The audio/video conference software works 
on PC/Mac/Linux, in any browser that has a fairly recent version 
of the flash plugin installed (I believe version 6 onward will work 
- 8+ will definitely work).  Aside from flash, there's no installation 
required to use the system - just go to the designated web page. 
 It will allow anyone in the room to take turns jumping onto the 
mic/camera to speak (admin can ban unwanted users), there's a text 
chat, and I've got a really simple way of sharing screen shots already 
installed in the existing room setup.  It should take only a minute 
or 2 to show presenters how it works...


I've being doing daily live online music lessons as a part of my 
commercial music lesson business for the past 4.5 years, and this 
system is the most stable and simple that I'm aware of.  It'll work 
through just about any router/firewall configuration, and it's dead 
simple to use - visitors just go the url, and they'll hear and see 
the speaker.  If they want to be seen on camera and speak, they just 
need to have a web cam and microphone installed and working.  If 
flash is running in the browser, it'll work immediately, no download 
or installs to do.


There's a video that I send to students which explains a little about 
it:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sx5qI0GWig


The online lesson page for my business, which has basic info about 
web cams, microphones, and headphones, is here:

http://rockfactory.us/OnlineLessons.html

Please let me know if you have any questions :)


> If someone will email me personally, I can start putting together 
some 

> suggestions about how to organize and manage the presentation. 
 I need

> to get an idea of what sort of software components will be needed: 

> white board, text chat, file sharing, 1-to-many/many-to-many video 

> conferencing, etc...  I'd also need to get a close estimate beforehand

> of the number of people attending, to make sure I prepare enough 

> bandwidth and available connections for the live event (If you'd 
like,

> I've got a little Rebol sign-up script that I use in my business 
to 

> let people sign up for events, you're welcome to use that if you'd 

> like, to help organize things).  Please let me know whenever you 
get a 
> chance!
>
> - Nick Antonaccoio